Enough of this lesser evilism crap

THIS IS A PRESCIENT POST THAT SHOULD BE READ AGAIN, NOW THAT FAR TOO MANY DEMOCRATS ARE GETTING READY TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON, LIKE OBAMA, A CRIMINAL CORPORATE SHILL AND A PHONY.  (FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2009).

==THIS IS A REPOST==

The Obama mirage should be a lesson for those who are quick to fall in love with phonies. (Are you listening Daily Kos?)

THOSE OF YOU WHO FOLLOWED the 2004 presidential campaign of Ralph Nader (sadly limited to very few states) probably got his VP candidate Matt Gonzalez’ memo on Obama’s voting record in Illinois and in the US Senate. I myself circulated it on two occasions to my lists.

Anyone who read it instantly recognized that Obama was being groomed by the pro-capitalist, pro-Wall St.-pro-corporate Democratic Party, which squelched Nader as it had in 2000 and 1966 by co-opting and bribing members of the US Green Party who nominated Nader in 2000, and by conducting a vile campaign of vicious lies about Nader.

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Their fears were that Nader could not only take away votes from Gore and Kerry but from Democrats running for congress at the same time.

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These efforts were aided by the paleoliberal media like The Nation (via Eric Alterman) and its co-conspirators across the narrow liberal spectrum. One big player in this was Code Pink Mafia headliner Medea Benjamin, who started a website for green Progressive Democrats for America, to wean greens away from Nader. Another was former Nader associate Ben Manski of the Wisconsin Green Party, who secretly manipulated the US Green Party National Committee’s executive committee to work against Nader quietly. A wealthy midwest pair of Democrats rewarded Manski handsomely with a quarter of a million dollars after the election, enabling him to set up a “Liberty Foundation”.

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Members of the Democratic Party defend  their party literally to the death. They consistently refuse to hold their congressional representatives accountable for anything except possibly abortion rights. They close their eyes and sign on the dotted line for any and all Democratic Party policies and legislation, and warn of the potential victory of the “lesser of two evils” if anyone dares to assert that she owns her own vote and has the right to cast it as she pleases and prefers, thank you very much, to vote for a candidate she actually likes. Since neither Gore nor Kerry were very likable, defections from the Dems were taken seriously, hence the assault on Nader.

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The knee-jerk liberal vote for a black Democratic candidate was pre ordained, though his margin of about four percentage points in the election was not huge.

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But for the next presidential election, and for the congressional elections before that, nervousness on the part of Democrats is going to increase. The Afghanistan war is of course the crux of it for most liberals, though for environmentalists and health care advocates, those issues will also loom large and any failure will be remembered and loom large.

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[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e know Obama is selling out on health care and energy. Duh. No other scenario could have been taken seriously by anyone knowing the issues and watching what was going on in congress, and knowing how the stealthy corrupt Democrats operate. But Afghanistan, and its periphery Pakistan, are going to seal Obama’s fate. I am not placing bets on what he will do because there are plenty of internal fights going on in Washington. The question is this: will Obama throw liberals under the bus on the war issue, as he is doing on health care and energy?

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In other words, will he take a calculated risk that he can insure sufficient campaign money and propaganda from corporations, Wall St., energy industry, neo-liberals, centrists, and just plain knee-jerk Democratic Party enrolees who would vote for the party against their own interests in exactly the same way that middle America votes Republican against their own interests?  Will these be enough (with of course the requisite mass media endorsements) to insure him the nomination and then, biggest question of all, the election? This calculation has already begun; it is well established that his deal with the insurance companies (a phony one) to limit Rx prices was a quid pro quo: don’t support Republicans in the next election. (There is no price reduction, just a reduction in projected future profits). You have to admire the brains and cojones of Rahm Emmanuel in dreaming that one up. No question that Emmanuel is bad for the Jews.

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We can influence his decision in a big way if we circulate articles like the one below, if we refuse to knuckle under to the Dems, if we refuse to accept what that party hands us every four years, if we go public, no holds barred, and if we say clearly, with some red cheeks, that we have been deceived, slickly, continually, but brilliantly, because the Democrats had the wiles to nominate a candidate of color whose skin color gave off one message, while his actual politics and connections gave off another. Wink, wink, Wall St. You guys know I am with you all the way. Read my lips. No new financial regulations. No injury to the health care industry and insurance companies. No threat to WTO, cap and trade energy brokers, coal companies.

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Let’s be blunt. Obama is an unmitigated disaster. As Bill Maher famously said, all he’s accomplished since last January is to buy a puppy. (Maher ended up becoming a big supporter of Obama, to thew tune of millions of dollars and plenty of free TV boosterism.—Ed) But let’s not just gripe. Let’s organize. Let’s send a clear unqualified message to the Democrats: we don’t like you, we won’t vote for you, and we won’t vote for Obama next time.

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Whether there is the will or energy to form a third party or anti DP voting bloc remains to be seen. But the first step is resistance and delegitimization of the two party system.  As my bumper sticker says: 

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“Punish repeat offenders. Don’t re-elect them”.

—Lorna Salzman